Redefining the Entertainment Experience

Entertainment Technology in the Connected Age (ETCA) Conference

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers has announced program details for the Entertainment Technology in the Connected Age (ETCA) conference, May 8-9 at the Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus. Entitled "Redefining the Entertainment Experience," this year's conference will explore emerging technologies' impact on current and future delivery of compelling connected entertainment experiences.

Bob DeHaven, general manager of Worldwide Communications & Media at Microsoft Azure, will present the first conference keynote, titled "At the Edge: The Future of Entertainment Carriage." The growth of on-demand programming and mobile applications, the proliferation of the cloud, and the advent of the internet-of-things demands that video content is available closer to the end user to improve both availability and the quality of experience.

Hanno Basse, chief technical officer at Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, will present "Next-Generation Entertainment: A View From the Fox."

The first conference session, "Rethinking Content Creation and Monetization in a Connected Age," will leap right into a discussion of multiplatform production and monetization using the latest creation, analytics, and search technologies. The session "Is There a JND in It for Me?" will take a second angle.

Moving from content creation and compression into delivery, "Linear Playout: From Cable to the Cloud" will discuss the current distribution landscape, looking at the consumer apps, smart TV apps, and content aggregators/curators.

Panellists will discuss the benefits and challenges of implementing voice effectively, and the impact this trend will have on viewing behavior. In a session that explores new consumption models, "VR From Fiction to Fact" will examine current experimentation with VR technology, emerging use cases across mobile devices and high-end headsets, and strategies for addressing the technical demands of this immersive format.